


you don't need to save me (but would you run away with me)

by thelilacfield



Series: there is no world where i am not yours [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: “Some extremist gang is out to get you, and you need a bodyguard to protect you and the people around you."“I don’t-”Then Maria walks through the door, and the thought of being nothing but coolly polite flits away from his mind at the young woman behind her.“Vision, this is Agent Wanda Maximoff."
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Series: there is no world where i am not yours [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	you don't need to save me (but would you run away with me)

**A/N:** AU-dvent day 3! Another leftover AU-gust prompt, a bodyguard au!

I'm on Tumblr and Twitter **@mximoffromanoff** if anybody wants to chat about all things scarletvision! Enjoy, and please let me know with a comment if you do :)

**Warning: mentions in dialogue of past familial death, death threats and extremism as a plot point**

* * *

"You have got to start taking this seriously," Tony snaps, running his fingers through his hair. Idly, Vision wonders if he should let his superior know that he should stop touching his carefully coiffed hair before it's irreparably ruined, but then Tony is rounding on him again and his eyes are flashing. "This is a _death_ _threat_ , Vision."

"And I don't want to panic people unnecessarily-"

"You should have a bodyguard," Tony says, and Vision wishes that he had agreed to take the car with Natasha and Steve to the ballroom. Then he wouldn't be staring at the back of Happy's head in the driver's seat and listening to Tony's lecture. "At the very least, you shouldn't be coming tonight."

"I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself without putting anyone in harm's way," he says. "And I would _never_ miss a Sokovia Fund event. When I next go to the reconstruction sites, I want to know that we did everything we could."

"Happy!" Tony calls to the front seat as the car slows, and his driver twists to look at him. "You do not take your eyes off the big guy tonight, you understand?"

"This is unnecessary-"

"This is your life, Vision," Pepper says, her voice lifting from her silence in the limo, and Tony slides a triumphant arm around his fiancée, smugness tinging his smile. "We can't bargain with it."

The car stops, and when he unravels himself from the car it's to flashing lights and reporters calling his name. Tony and Pepper fall into stride together, down the red carpet like the natural celebrities they were before the Avengers were a whisper of an idea in Nick Fury's mind. Vision hesitates for a moment, then Maria Hill blossoms from the crowd in her black silk dress and tucks her hand in the crook of his elbow. "We have to talk about security," she says, and he shakes his head. "Do not mess with me, Vision. Fury is indisposed, so I'm the highest authority here tonight."

"I don't need-"

"I have double the usual number of agents here tonight," she says. "Every car is being inspected, every bag searched. People have to show two separate forms of ID to come in along with their ticket. And I'm developing a list of agents who would make a suitable personal bodyguard for you to pass along to Tony or Rogers."

"I will be fine, Agent Hill," he says, and she quirks a devastating eyebrow at him. "They are only letters."

"They are _threats_ ," she says. "And I know you've only been around for a year, but in this world we treat threats to people we care about seriously."

"I will be fine, Agent Hill," he says as they cross the threshold of the ballroom, the spiralling lights and the suited band. "And, if we may move past unpleasantness for the evening, would you like to dance?"

The evening passes as the usual fundraiser does. People wearing press badges ask him questions he answers to the best of his abilities. He dances with Maria several songs more and then bears Pepper in her blue velvet onto the floor while Tony talks with old business associates, persuading them to put more and more money in the Sokovia Fund. Natasha blooms out of the crowds after Steve's speech to ask him to dance, her purple skirts spinning around them, and the evening sways onward, helped along by laughter and brandy.

Everything shatters in the wake of a smashing window. A harsh yell of, "Get the robot!"

A SHIELD agent screaming, "Grenade!" and a thousand feet scrambling to get out of the ballroom.

An explosion that lights up the room in a bright, hot flash that throws Vision backwards.

When he gets outside, body aching and ears ringing, there are police sirens wailing and SHIELD agents gathered in groups, comforting the innocent bystanders of the attack. Tony looks up when Vision approaches the knot of Avengers, their formal clothes grey with dust, and he says, "We start interviewing candidates for your bodyguard tomorrow."

"Tony-"

"That was a direct attempt on your life, Vision," Steve says, their stern leader, and Vision's mouth snaps shut. "You are getting a personal guard. No questions asked."

* * *

"Stop sulking," Tony says. Vision watches him move around the room, and shifts again on his seat, tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. "And seriously, stop fidgeting. We all know you don't like this."

"I don't want someone risking their life for me when I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself-"

"Some extremist gang is out to get you, and you need a bodyguard to protect you and the people around you," Tony says sharply. "What if they find you at another event, huh? Another grenade? You need a bodyguard to keep you safe."

"I don't-"

"Well, Maria decided, and I'm not stupid enough to argue with the Deputy Director of SHIELD," Tony says, almost cheerful. Then FRIDAY is chiming through the compound to let them know that Maria has arrived, with her agent who Vision has to submit to allowing to be his bodyguard, and he huffs one last time before Tony shoots him a look that could kill and he straightens up. He'll be polite, if nothing else.

Then Maria walks through the door, and the thought of being nothing but coolly polite flits away from his mind at the young woman behind her. She's dressed all in black, as usually befits a SHIELD agent, her red hair tied up in a ponytail, but it's her eyes that his gaze goes to first. Very green in her pale face, fringed by dark lashes, and when she sees him looking something in the professional mask of her expression cracks and twitches for a moment. And he tunes back into Tony and Maria's small talk just in time to hear her say, "Vision, this is Agent Wanda Maximoff. She's new to the fold, but very good at her job. Tony decided she was the best candidate for your bodyguard."

"It's an honour, Mr. Stark," Wanda says, and _oh_ , she's Sokovian. The accent isn't as thick as those he hears when he goes to visit the slowly rebuilding country, but there's enough of a sharpness to her words for him to notice. She tucks a stray curl of her coppery hair behind her ear, and he notices her nails painted black and the silver rings on her fingers, her slim fingers, and something in his chest is clenching very hard and he's trying very hard not to betray anything to Tony.

"Welcome to the compound, Agent Maximoff," Tony says, and something in her eyes flashes bright and defiant. "Nat and Sam prepped you a room near Vision's. They said I was under no circumstances to help them, so I have no idea what they've done for you."

"Thank you for the welcome," she says, almost stiff, and then her gaze turns to Vision and all the breath rushes out of his lungs. "So I'm guarding you?" she asks, and he nods, the barest nervous dip of his head. "You look like you can take care of yourself."

"I _can_ -" he starts, but his voice comes out a strangled caw, and a smile splits her face, and all the words in the world immediately leave his mind, his throat squeezing shut at her beauty.

"Regardless, Agent Maximoff will be trailing you night and day," Maria says, and he turns his gaze to her, welcoming the chance to stop looking at Wanda and compose himself. "She's going to report back to me every week. I have other agents out in the field trying to find information on this extremist group that's attacking you. We'll keep you updated with any developments."

"Thank you, Agent Hill," Vision says, his voice returned to normal now, though his heart is still pounding. "And I look forward to working with Agent Maximoff."

"Wanda," she corrects, and he looks at her again, daring to hope it won't make him react the same way. But she still makes his breath stutter, makes the room seem to shrink, makes gravity turn upside-down and the world shimmer with change. "We're going to be spending an awful lot of time together, Vision. Best we get familiar now."

"Not too familiar," Tony says, his eyes gleaming with mirth. "No fraternising, remember?"

"Oh, for the last time, Tony, that rule is just what my agents decide to tell new recruits who won't stop gazing at Natasha in the office-"

"If you'll excuse me, I have a training exercise to attend to," Vision says, standing up. He hopes he isn't imagining Wanda's eyes flickering over him, at least until he turns on his heel and walks out, phasing down through the floors to the training room and into his uniform, cape a wash of gold behind him.

It's only when he looks in the mirror that he sees his cheeks are glowing gold too. That the thought of fraternising with Agent Maximoff made him blush.

He sets the simulation to the hardest level to distract himself.

* * *

Wanda fits so seamlessly into life in the compound he wonders if he should send Maria flowers to apologise for digging in his heels about being given a bodyguard. Her formal clothes from the first weeks of her assignment fade into jumpers and cardigans in varying hues of red, skirts that are just short enough to make his mouth dry whenever he looks, and she relaxes from the formal SHIELD agent into small smiles that make his head spin.

He learns about her. She rises as early as he does, and in the sunrises he spends taking in the beauty of the world from the roof of the compound he watches her on the running track. The training regime of a SHIELD agent is almost as strict as the regime Steve sets for them, and he wonders in those quiet moments how a Sokovian girl has come to rise so high in the opinions of the heads of SHIELD to become an Avenger's bodyguard.

She plays guitar. He learns that when he hears the mournful strum of the strings through his wall late at night, finds her with her hair loose and a dark grey cardigan over her shoulders, her ringed fingers on the strings and her eyes cast down and sad. Her guitar is a honey-gold wood, her painted nails dark against it, and she handles it so gently he determines it must have some sentimental value.

After a month, she starts to spend casual time with him. Time where they aren't out in public, where she isn't a shadow dogging his every step with the bulge of a gun at her hip. When he cooks, she stands in the archway to the kitchen, her hair loose and freckles breaking through her make-up. And in the still, calm evenings, she folds herself into the chair opposite him at the chess table and lets him teach her how to play.

"Tell me about yourself, Wanda," he says one night. Her fingers hover over a knight and she glances up at him through her lashes. She can't know what that does to him, her green eyes focused so completely on him, her freckles like stars scattered in a perfect constellation across her nose and cheeks, her fingertips resting on her chess piece.

"What do you want to know?" she asks, moving her knight to take out one of his pawns.

"Anything," he says. "We spend so much time together to know so little about each other." He stares at the board between them, pondering his next move. "You're Sokovian. Tell me about growing up there. How did you end up in the US?"

"Well...I grew up in Novi Grad," she says, tucking her hair behind one ear, watching him consider the board between them. "I remember the market every weekend and the woods near our apartment. Learning to swim in the river. But then the civil war started, and we had to be scared, and..." She goes silent, her throat working for a moment, before she says, "And then my parents were killed when the rebels fired a bomb into our apartment building."

"Oh...oh, Wanda, I'm sorry," he says, looking at the way her face pinches like she's trying not to cry. "I didn't know. You don't have to share anything else with me."

"I was ten years old," she says softly. "And my parents were...gone. Just like that. And when the war ended I didn't know what to do. But my brother...he kept us alive on the streets. And he raised the money to buy us tickets to New York. Land of golden opportunity and everything."

"You have a brother?" he asks, and she shakes her head sadly. "Oh. He-"

"Died," she says, and her eyes flash. "A HYDRA agent murdered him. And when the SHIELD agent who attended the call found me there, they...offered me a job. A place at the Academy." She moves another piece and says, "I didn't finish high school. I couldn't go to college. I wasn't going to turn them down."

"I'm so sorry, Wanda," he says, soft and sad. "You've been through so much tragedy. It's simply not fair."

"I'm not doing so bad for myself now," she says, gesturing ruefully around at the compound. "When I graduated from the Academy, Agent Hill offered me a place in the elite team. She said I showed too much promise to waste away doing admin before I earned field work. And then those extremists started threatening you, and now here I am." She looks up at him and her smile disarms him so thoroughly his next move is an idiotic one.

"You can ask me anything too," he says, and she smiles.

"Why are you always on the roof when I go for my morning jog around the track?" she asks, and he feels the heat creep into his cheeks. Wonders if she'll notice the delicate swirl of gold beneath the crimson of his skin.

"I like to watch the sunrise," he says, and her face softens. Her sharp edges filed down for a moment, and he's awestruck by how beautiful she is. He'd wait for her like he waits for the sunrise, for starlight, for the golds and burgundies of autumn, for the crisp silver of first frost. Everything beautiful about the world is tangled up in her burnished copper hair and her eyes. "I have only existed in this world for a year, Wanda. I like to admire how beautiful it truly is."

"How poetic," she observes lightly, and clicks her queen down onto the chessboard with an air of finality. "And I believe that is checkmate."

He watches her walk away from him, the ceiling lights in her hair and the swish of her skirt with the movement of her hips. And he has to swallow thickly when Sam walks into the room and asks why his face is glowing.

Checkmate indeed.

* * *

Another ballroom surrounded by security awaits him when he unfolds himself from the car. He's been styled in a grey suit and a navy tie, and he has Wanda behind him. She's outfitted like the perfect SHIELD agent, all in black, her gun holstered at her hip. Her hair is tied up and she's wearing an earpiece, and Tony is shaking his head at her when they make their way to join the knot of Avengers. "This is the Stark Industries Christmas Gala!" he says. "You should dress up."

"I am a bodyguard, Stark," Wanda says sharply. "And I can't do my job in a silk dress."

"Thigh holsters exist," Tony says, grinning. "For the stylish SHIELD agent."

Wanda rolls her eyes and walks straight past him, and at a pointed look from Steve Vision scuttles after her before she takes her eyes off him. The ceiling of the ballroom is dripping with crystal icicles, a band in metallic silver and blue jackets standing on a platform with their instruments, the walls and tables draped in icy blue and white silks. Vision has only attended one gala before this one, but there's already a degree of the event getting more and more extravagant every year. And there are so many people, crowded into the room, laughing and talking and raising glasses of champagne handed out on silver circular trays by the waitstaff. He doesn't know where to look.

There are other obvious bodyguards following the rich and famous around the room, hovering at the walls with their eyes on the exits. Wanda quickly joins them, and Vision tries not to bristle when he sees a tall, broad man give her an appraising look when she stands a few feet away from him. He has no right to be jealous, and he quickly distracts him with a few shrimp from a passing server and a glass of champagne that he downs immediately before going to find his table.

The evening flows on, much the same as the gala did last year. When he was new and everything was so unique, his first taste of champagne and the fancy finger food and his first waltz. This year, he watches Pepper stand on the podium in her gold silk dress and curled hair and diamond jewellery and talk about the year Stark Industries has had, their hopes for the future, urging the crowds to dig deep and donate to the Sokovia Fund. When they mention that, his eyes dart to Wanda, but her face is carefully impassive.

Tony takes the stage after his fiancée, smiling after her with all the softness of man in love, and says, "I think my beautiful fiancée has said everything that needs to be said. Happy Holidays, everyone! Enjoy the evening!"

Cheering, music striking up from the band, and a young, blonde SHIELD agent asks him to dance. Vision lets her lead him onto the floor, his hand respectfully resting lightly on her back, and the music envelopes him. He likes this part of the evening, being one of the crowd. How people seem to look past his crimson skin and the stone glowing faintly in his forehead. He's an Avenger, a hero, and the women who ask to dance look at him with shiny eyes.

It's after a girl he's sure is the heiress to a billion dollar airline company releases him from her grip that he looks up and finds that Wanda isn't standing at the wall anymore. He waves off the next girl waiting to approach him and leaves the ballroom, realising as he walks how warm he is, flushed with dancing and the glasses of champagne. He always thought he was unable to get drunk, but perhaps he'll join the likes of Sam and Rhodey in their laughter and slanted grins.

Wanda is standing outside, the bite of the cold December air sinking like claws into his skin. He doesn't know where his coat is, somewhere in the gilded depths of the ballroom, and his blazer provides little shelter from the chill. He's momentarily jealous of her heavy clothes, her thick boots and the pockets that will actually do something when she tucks her hands into them, and then he asks, "Why are you outside? I wanted to ask you to dance."

"I'm working," she says, and her voice is thin and sharp as a knife's edge, her gaze turned away from him.

"I thought you weren't supposed to take your eyes off me," he says, and she turns to look at him over her shoulder with her eyes shooting such daggers that he shrinks back.

"I'm getting some air, it's so stuffy in there," she says, and her voice is even harder, colder, and her eyes are flashing so green and he's so consumed by her. Maybe it's the champagne talking, maybe it's the atmosphere of the party, but everything he is is drawn to her like a magnet, irrevocably pulled in. He _wants_. Then her eyes narrow, bringing him back to reality, and she says, "And you looked just fine in there with that heiress all over you."

"She asked me to dance," he says softly, and she lets out a derisive snort. "I couldn't say no. It's rude."

"I don't care what you do," she snaps. "I just don't want to stand around all night getting ogled by rich men while I watch heiresses and junior agents bat their eyelashes at you."

He watches her breath spiral silver into the air as the truth of her narrowed eyes and the undercurrent of annoyance in her voice hits him like a thunderbolt. "Wanda...Wanda, are you _jealous_?"

"I'm not _jealous_ ," she snaps, but it's the tone that makes it so clear she's lying, and he's encouraged to step closer to her. Champagne sings warm through his body, making everything waver at the edges, and when he stands next to her at the fence he looks down at her face pale in the moonlight, her earpiece tugged out and dangling from its wire over her jacket. And she blinks up at him for an open moment before she looks away, "Go back inside, Vision. You're drunk."

"I'm not," he says, and she shakes her head. "I have had a few glasses of champagne. But I know what I'm saying." He leans down closer to her, willing her to turn that perfect green gaze on him, and says, "I know you don't need to be _jealous_ , Wanda."

"Then it's a good thing I'm not," she says, but when she turns her head and meets his eyes he can see the fight go out of her. "Vision-"

" _Wanda_ ," he breathes, and she shivers, her gaze dropping away from his.

"You can't say my name like that," she says, and he breathes it again, moving closer. "You can't _look_ at me like _that_."

"Why not?" he asks, his voice so quiet it's barely audible over the music and the clink of glasses from inside.

"Because you're an Avenger, and I'm a SHIELD agent," she says, a desperate bluster of protest.

"The no fraternising rule is made up, we both know that-"

"I'm your bodyguard," she says, but he can see the colour flooding her cheeks, her eyes darkening, the way her lip part and he can feel the warmth of her breath on his skin. "It...we shouldn't."

" _Wanda_ ," he whispers, lost in her eyes, the smell of her perfume, the heady atmosphere and the cold night and their breath mingling in silvery mist between them.

"Say my name again," she breathes, and he smiles.

" _Wanda_ ," he says one last time, and she closes the infinitesimal distance between their lips and kisses him.

It's transcendent.

* * *

He doesn't know how to act around Wanda after the gala. After she fell out of their kiss, smiled up at him in a way that made his chest clench and heat rush downwards, and proceeded to act utterly normally with him for the rest of the night. Even though he felt alive with electricity every time she was near him, ready to light up and take flight like a firework when her arm brushed his getting back into the car at the end of the night, there wasn't a flicker in her face to betray what had passed between them.

And the compound doesn't feel the same now. He plays at normality, letting the others find him playing chess with her, but he's so tuned into her now. Her fingers on the chess pieces make his heart skip, and hearing her play guitar through the walls at night makes it impossible to sleep. She weaves through his dreams, her lips on his, and he wakes up in a sweat, flustered and confused.

It's still dark outside when he slips down to the training centre and sets the simulation to the highest level of difficulty. He fights the enemies the computer creates out of thin air for them, phases a fist through them, shoots them with jets of light from the stone and watches them burst into whirling prisms of light. He breaks his own time record, and he's still thinking about her, slim fingers and soft lips and the sound she made when his lips parted above hers.

When he shoves the door open to the showers, there's a startled sound and he looks up straight into the eyes that haunted his dreams. And he has to shake away the image of those eyes full of promise as her dream self slinked on top of him, because the real Wanda is standing in front of him, her hair up in a ponytail and clad in running leggings and a hooded top, clearly back from an early morning jog. "I didn't mean to disturb," he says, trying to pretend he isn't distracted by the way her hand reaches up to tug the tie from her hair, pretending that everything in him doesn't want to reach for her.

"You're not disturbing," she says. "You should've said you were training. I could've helped."

"I don't know how you would, Wanda," he says, and she shoots him a wounded look. "I just mean...I have to train my powers. You couldn't help with the stone or my flight or my density manipulation."

"Well, it would be fun to see you in action," she says, and he looks up at her, startled. There's a smile on her lips, tilting flirtatiously, her eyes glinting wickedly, and his mouth is suddenly dry. "And...as long as we're alone and no one else is awake..."

She trails off suggestively, and closes the distance between them, pressing her mouth soundly to his. Their first kiss since the gala, and he clings to her, the relief that it wasn't a singular occurrence, or a dream. Her lips are just as he remembers against his, but this kiss is somehow more urgent, her hands sliding up to the back of his head, pulling him closer. Something about the dark of the winter morning makes everything feel more urgent, and before he knows it he has his hands under her shirt, her skin warm and soft under his palms, and she's gasping against his lips.

When she breaks the kiss, he's disappointed. Hollow. But she only does it to reach down and pull her shirt up over her head, leaving her in only her sports bra and him gaping while she eyes his uniform and asks, "How does that come off?"

"Oh, I, um...just think it off," he says, and he sounds so stupid. But his mind is thick with the haze of lust, with her coppery hair loose over her shoulders and the dip of her cleavage and her lips quirked in amusement.

"Hot," she says, and he blushes. "Anyway...I need to shower. There's an invitation to join me, if you want."

"I...I thought this couldn't happen," he says, gesturing vaguely and limply between them.

"Fuck it," she says, and something about her swearing does _things_ to him. "If you're not going to report me to anyone for this, then I won't report you. If we both want it, there's no harm. And I can't stop thinking about you since we kissed."

"But...you acted so normal," he says, and she just smiles.

"Isn't the sneaking around exciting, though?" she asks, and all the blood in his body seems to rush straight down. "Snatching kisses outside in the dark at galas. Having sex in the showers before anyone else is awake."

" _Sex_?!" he blurts out, and she raises an eyebrow.

"Haven't you done this before?" she asks, and he shakes his head. "Never?"

"That...at the gala, that...was my first kiss," he says, and her eyes widen. Then her smile lights up her face again, wider than before, and she holds out a hand.

"Let me show you the ropes," she says sweetly, and he follows her, moth to the flame.

When she walked into the room upstairs to meet him two months ago, he never imagined they'd end up here. With her pressed up against the shower wall, steam rising around them as the actual act of washing is forgotten, her mouth at the hollow of his throat and her leg tucked around his hip. His name on her lips, pressed like a burn into his skin, and her lips at his ear, whispering, "Say my name, Vizh."

He whispers it like a prayer. A promise, and when they finally untangle themselves from each other he stumbles out of the shower dripping wet and head spinning. He had _sex_ with her. Wanda wrapped herself around him and came moaning his name and her hands were all over him and she smiled when he whispered he was close. He'd resigned himself to never being found attractive for just who he is and how he looks rather than his status as a symbol, and yet the most beautiful woman he's ever seen just had sex with him in the showers.

She sits near him when she's done, wrapped in a robe, rubbing her hair dry. And he finally has the courage to speak up and shyly say, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says, and turns a smile on him that makes his chest clench. "I've needed to resolve that particular tension since we met."

"Oh." His face falls and he says, "So it's resolved? That's it?"

"Oh sweetheart," she says, and her hand is on his cheek, lifting his face for her to press a soft kiss to his lips, "we have a lot more _resolving_ to do."

* * *

He's giddy with his secret. And no one seems to have noticed that he keeps sneaking around with Wanda, their secret smiles, only the occasional comment about his seemingly constant smiles being thrown his way by curious teammates. He manages to head them off with vague comments about beautiful sunsets and the first snow, and they all roll their eyes and turn back to their lives and ignore what's happening right in front of them.

After their first time, he can't get enough of Wanda. He wants to learn everything about her, inside and out. He wants to be able to write the encyclopaedia of Wanda Maximoff, covering everything from the freckles on her nose to the scar on the inside of her ankle. He's kissed every inch of her, heard her call out his name, had a lap full of her and her breath on his neck and her nails scraping down the plates of vibranium criss-crossing his chest. Everything he is has become hers, laid open for the taking, and he wants to drown himself in her, overwhelmed with everything lust is.

They're so caught up in the fragile, beautiful thing blooming between them that he almost forgets what brought her into his life in the first place. The threats looming over him, the letters intercepted by SHIELD, the attack at the Sokovia Benefit.

Then he can't forget. The car screeching into the square where they're hosting a small meet-up for their fans, the whistling grenades and gunfire, the screaming. Wanda shoving him out of the way and pulling the gun from her holster, her hair flying like flame when she turns to face the attackers. And it isn't until he struggles through the frantic, fleeing crowds that he finds an ashen Steve and a note taped to the window of their car.

 _COME AND FIND US, ROBOT. DON'T LET HER DIE_.

Just like that, the fragile thing shatters. And he's burning with anger, the desire for vengeance, refusing to obey his shaken team's call to heel. Wanda is gone, the group trying to attack him took her, they somehow saw their connection and are trying to break through to him. He shouldn't be going to them. He knows that. Every second of training he's been given tells him he should wait for the plan, go with back-up if he must go at all. But every minute that he lets drift by makes it more likely they might hurt her to get to him, and he can't stand it.

The group is based out of a manor with paving leading to the door, so deceptively normal. Their leader is flint-eyed and has a shaved head, an electric gun and an assault rifle next to the chair he sits in. Vision lifts his head high to approach him, and he laughs, a dark chuckle. "This is all it took to get you?" he asks. "Taking some _girl_. I thought you were supposed to be _evolved_."

"I won't negotiate with you until you let me see that Agent Maximoff is safe," he says, and the leader gives a single look to one of his lackeys. And there's the familiar jangle of handcuffs, and Wanda is being dragged into the room and thrown at the leaders feet. He almost whimpers seeing the bruise surrounding her eye and the split in her lips, her fingers raw and red from scraping at her chains, and the leader _laughs_.

"She _is_ important, isn't she?" he asks, and Vision tries not to betray how horrified and angry and sad he is. Wanda's eyes are huge and afraid, her clothes torn, and he wants to go to her so badly, pull her away from all this, apologise for being the reason she's here. "Even a robot can want a pretty girl, huh?"

"Let her go," Vision says, firmer than he's ever heard himself speak. "She's innocent. She has nothing to do with whatever you want from me."

"We want you dead," the leader says, and he flinches. "You're no good for the world. Something far too dangerous to keep existing." He looks down at Wanda, and savagery slinks into his smile. "But it seems hurting _her_ would do far more damage to you than pulling out your circuits."

A sharp sound of silver, and a knife at Wanda's neck, her handcuffed wrists jerking out in front of her, and Vision's eyes are prickling, his throat dry with horror. "Don't hurt her," he pleads, and he would fall to his knees and beg, prostrate himself in front of these people who want him dead. He'd let them kill him if it would save her. "I'm the one you want. Let her go. I'll do anything."

"Vizh," she whispers, and her voice is thin and frightened, and he watches a single tear trace silver down her cheek, "don't."

"Oh, so the pretty girl wants the robot too?" the leader taunts, and she turns her face away from him, hiding the tears that are cracking Vision to pieces. "Really? _Him_? A woman like you could do so much better."

"Say that again," she snaps, and there's a fire in her eyes, and _God_ , Vision is so in love with her. He's in love, something he never thought could happen to him, and the woman he loves has a knife at her neck and it's all _his fault_. And she's tossing her hair defiantly and glaring up at the man whose face is contorting with rage at her lack of fright. "I dare you."

"Well, _Agent_ Maximoff, I dare say any of my men could show you a better time than the robot over there-"

"Fuck you," Wanda spits, and looks at the lackey holding a knife to her neck. "Screw this."

For a moment, he is so proud of her. Then someone pulls a gun out and there's a crack and there's no time for him to get in the way, for him to take the bullet for her, he's going to watch her die-

And then there's an explosion of bright, glowing red. The bullet stills in the air so he can see it and then disintegrates, the handcuffs fly across the room and embed themselves into the wall, and the men of the extremist group all go crashing to the ground. They're unconscious, and Wanda is standing up, stretching her wrists and flicking dust off her clothes. Then she looks up at Vision and finally smiles. "You came for me," she says, and he just gapes at her. "What?"

"You...have _superpowers_?" he asks, and she looks down at her feet. "Wanda...what was _that_?"

"Agent Hill had me keep it a secret," she says. "I wasn't...entirely honest with you about what happened to me."

"Well, what _did_ happen?" he asks. "Wanda, God, I thought he was going to _shoot_ you, I thought I was going to watch you _die_ , and now you turn out to be a _superhero_ -"

"Hey, you're the Avenger here," she says, the slight teasing lilt to her voice he normally loves so much doing nothing to ease the tension. "Look, I...I told you my brother was murdered by HYDRA. That's not exactly true. We volunteered for HYDRA experiments."

" _Volunteered_?"

"We were desperate," she says. "We had no money. No way to get to the US. And Strucker said he thought we might live."

"Strucker?" he asks, and she nods. "As in, Wolfgang von Strucker? The man who was experimenting with-"

"The mind stone, yes," she says, and he touches a trembling hand to the stone at his forehead.

"You survived," he says softly. "We were all told every test subject died in the experiments."

"Everyone but me," she says bitterly. "Even my brother. Strucker said...there was just something in me that wanted to live."

"So...how did you get here?" he asks. "How did you become a SHIELD agent? How did you end up my _bodyguard_?"

"SHIELD raided Strucker's lab," she says. "Arrested him and all his associates. And they found me in the basement, chained up like a dog. I...I didn't have any control over my powers. I lashed out. So they kept me weak. And when Agent Hill asked if I was with HYDRA, I told her no. She gave me a choice: I could stay in a safe house while they tried to figure out if there was any way to reverse what Strucker did to me. Or I could train and be an agent and learn to control what I could do." She raises her chin defiantly. "And when they offered me the chance to be among the Avengers, of course I said yes."

"But...why me?" he asks, his voice strangled.

And her whole face softens. "We're made from the same thing, Vizh," she says, and her eyes are bright and he just watched her take out a room full of people who wanted them both dead. He watched her protect him and herself. "The mind stone is inside both of us. They gave me to you because I'm the only one who can see you completely."

"I love you," he blurts out.

And then there's the sound of a quinet overhead, and a blast taking out the wall, and the visor of the Iron Man helmet is revealing Tony's face for him to yell, "You stupid _idiot_ , running off with no back-up and no plan! Get out here! Right now!"

It isn't until they're in the quinjet, heading back to the SHIELD helicarrier and medical attention, that Wanda's fingers fold gently over his and her voice is soft in his ear.

"I love you too."


End file.
